WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO ON A SUNDAY?
My longtime friend, Dr. Phil Glisson, is in revival this week at the church I pastor, Fellowship Baptist Church in Hernando, Mississippi (www.fellowshipbaptisthernando.org). We will have the revival messages of Dr. Glisson available for listening to on our web site. But, for the next blog or two, I want to share some revival reflections from Phil Glisson’s revival messages when he preached a revival in August 1995 at Cherokee Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, when I was pastor there. For the first revival sermon, which was on a Sunday morning, Bro. Phil preached on Going To Church. In sharing about why and how we ought to approach going to church, he shared several excuses that people use for not going to church. Twelve of those excuses were included in an illustration that Bro. Phil told about a preacher who got tired of going to ballgames:
There was a pastor in a town who was expected by everybody to go to all the ballgames. He was getting tired of going to so many ballgames, so he got to the point that he just did not want to go to any more ballgames. He knew, though, that he had to come up with some good reasons for not attending ballgames. He came up with twelve reasons why he was going to stop going to ballgames.
1) Every time he went, they asked him for money.
2) The people with whom he sat did not seem too friendly.
3) The seats were too hard and not comfortable.
4) The coach never came to see him.
5) The referees were always making decisions that he did not agree with.
6) He had to sit by hypocrites when he went to ballgames. Some people were there for reasons other than to watch the game.
7) A lot of games went into overtime, and he was late getting home.
8) The band played music that he did not like.
9) A lot of games were scheduled when he had other things that he wanted to do.
10) His parents took him to too many ballgames when he was growing up.
11) He had read some books on sports, and he felt like he knew just as much about the game as the coaches.
12) He did not want to take his own children to ballgames because he wanted them to grow up and decide for themselves which sport they liked the best.
Now we have heard all those excuses, but not applied to going to ballgames. Do you see how silly they sound when we use them for not going to ballgames? They sound just as ridiculous when we use them for not going to the House of God.
Dr. Glisson shared a story this past Sunday evening in the revival service at Fellowship that a mother had taken her young son to a clothing store to buy him some nice clothes. When he tried on an outfit that he and his mother liked, he said “This will look nice wearing to church.” The salesman helping them out said, “So, you go to church on Sundays?” And the little boy replied, “What else is there to do on Sunday?” Well, that ought to get an “Amen,” an “Oh, me,” or “Ouch!” Why? Because in our day anything and everything keeps people from worshiping on the Lord’s Day at a church. Those ballgames that the pastor Bro. Phil shared about, who didn’t want to attend any more ballgames, are keeping families by the droves away from church. Parents are teaching their children by what they do on the Lord’s Day other than attend church that those things are more important than leading their children to develop a personal relationship with the Lord and maintaining it through being discipled in the faith through a local church.
Oh, me, I am about to start preaching! I will address this issue more in a later blog. It’s time to get the church back to what it ought to be from what it has become to many–at the bottom of the list or near the bottom of the list of priorities.
Looking ahead with great anticipation to what the Lord has in store,
Dr. Bobby Mullins